


Ink on skin

by marginaliana



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-09 01:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17397482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: Anne’s wordmark grew in where her heart seemed to be / Gilbert’s wordmark came in early.





	Ink on skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dunderklumpen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dunderklumpen/gifts).



> Happy Fandom Stocking!

Anne’s wordmark grew in where her heart seemed to be. Not where it _was_ , but where she felt it beat, felt it ache at the sight of the little Violet Vale.

It blossomed one morning just as she was leaving Patty's Place; the heat of it was so sharp that it made her pause with one hand on the door frame, holding steady until it passed. It was sharp enough that she couldn't quite tell what the word was.

She was distracted all day, caught between study and speculation, and though the first would have been easier without the second, it wasn’t until she was getting undressed that night that she had the courage to look. 

The ink on her skin was perhaps auburn, the color of the sky after the sun has slipped below the horizon, the color of cherries just past ripeness. But no, she could not fool herself, not about this. It was orange. As orange as her hair. 

It said: carrots.

——

Gilbert’s wordmark came in early. It was a careful series of square letters printed one by one across the side of his scalp, under his hair. He didn’t need to look to know what it meant, but he was curious about the word itself and so that afternoon, in a quiet corner of the campus, he had Charlie look at it for him.

“ _Slate_ ,” Charlie said. “Only… the letters are split across the middle into top and bottom. I’ve never seen one like that before. Any idea what it means?”

“Yes,” Gilbert said, and nothing more.

——

He kept it inside of him as best he could, that truth. It threatened to burst free sometimes, when he saw Anne in the moonlight, or on a bridge overlooking water as wild as she is, or hem-deep in a field of flowers; it was only her determined disinterest that kept him from making too much of a fool of himself. 

He knew immediately when Anne’s mark appeared. It was an indefinable change in her pensive expression – now a little surprised, a little afraid. It was the way she sometimes touched one hand to her heart when she saw another couple walking past, arm in arm. It was the way she didn't look at Gilbert at all.

Before, the avoidance might have cut him to the quick, cut him just as it had for years when they were children. But now it gave him hope. Gilbert had steadily clung to his belief that they were for each other, had thought himself solid in his faith, and yet it was a relief to have confirmation. 

He wondered what the word was. She would tell him, one day. He would see it himself, one day – and the thought of that made him shiver. Anne was as beautiful as she had ever been, even with the distance between them; perhaps it made her more so, as it granted him the prospect of closing it. 

It was too soon to ask – Anne couldn't be rushed. He must wait, must wait longer than he had already, and yet the pain of waiting had eased. He knew he would have his deepest desire at last, and that had its own sort of sweetness.

——

She could not look at him now, the boy she had snubbed and rivaled for so long, the young man she called friend. Her wordmark could mean nothing else; but how could it be _Gilbert_ , so thoroughly the opposite of her cherished dreams? Neither dark nor melancholy nor heroic nor poetical. Certainly he was good-natured and kind, a person much admired, an excellent friend. He was handsome too, she supposed. But there was nothing of the romance in him that she'd longed for, nothing wild.

And yet there was something about the way she felt when she looked at him. Not longing, but a sort of proprietary feeling. He could not have been meant for some other girl, for none of them would deserve him. But that was merely a recognition of his good character. It was not love – it couldn't be. Where was the wild fluttering of her heart, where was the bright singing of her soul?

It was only Gilbert. 

Wasn't it?

——

Summer came, still with only the sweet drawing-out of hope. Anne's burgeoning attention had lifted a weight from Gilbert that he hadn't realized he was carrying; it was easier now to be near her without pain.

The air was light and fresh in his lungs as they walked one evening down the path to Hester Gray’s garden and sat down on the old bench. Anne wore a green dress of a shade that brought out the rich tints of her hair and the iris-like delicacy of her skin. Sometimes he looked over and caught a glimpse of the starry grey of her eyes.

They shared a silent while on the bench, and then slowly Anne sighed, a sound that came from somewhere deep inside herself. She tipped her head sideways to rest it on Gilbert's shoulder.

"Anne," Gilbert said, daring to think this might be the moment. "I have a dream. I have been dreaming it for a long time now, and I think— I hope—" He took a breath. "There is a word that I have been wearing, and I know who it is for. Do you know?"

Beside him, Anne shivered. "Yes," she said, her voice low and unsteady. "Yes, Gilbert."

"I think you wear a word, too. Do you know who yours is for?"

She lifted her head and turned to look at him with shining eyes. Gilbert needed no other answer. He drew her close and kissed her; she threw her arms around his neck, and when her hand touched the back of his head he could feel the split in his letters knitting itself closed until the word was whole.


End file.
